The Weight Of It
by I Was Here Moments Ago
Summary: Sirius hoped he wasn't in love, it seemed almost disappointing. Too commonplace. RL/SB


Sometimes, Sirius would just watch.

James caught him at it a few times but somehow knew not to take the piss. Instead, he'd gently bring him back down to earth with a joke or tap on the arm or occasionally, if he were feeling particularly affectionate, an elbow in the gut.

Peter knew too, Sirius knew that much, though he'd either been told by James to stay quiet or figured it out through his own sense of tact (though Peter had about as much tact as Sirius himself had, so he'd wager it had been the former). Even when Sirius would wind James up about Lily, he'd never bring Remus up in retaliation, even though everyone but the boy himself seemed to know about Sirius's crush.

Crush.

He hated that word. It made him feel twelve and female and giggly. It sounded like a phase, a daydream, an impossibility. And Sirius Black did not believe in impossibilities. It felt altogether too _light_, too _clean_, too much like he couldn't spend hours just watching Remus read, too much like the breath didn't catch in his throat just a little bit whenever he coaxed a laugh out of him. Too much like it didn't feel like a knife twisting in his gut when Remus had let slip quietly at breakfast he had a date in Hogsmeade one weekend, or when Remus confessed later that day that he'd decided he was going to cancel because 'who'd want to date a werewolf anyway?' it didn't feel like the knife was being pulled out the other end, severing another set of arteries.

He'd told him then, sort of. "You're so much more than that. And if they can't see past it then they don't deserve you anyway."

Remus had snorted, but it was humorless and bitter. "Deserve me?" he'd muttered, picking at a hole in the sleeve of his cardigan. "Sirius, I could be the most perfect person in the world but at the end of the day I'm still going to turn into a bloody monster once a month and it's a bit hard for people to accept that."

He'd not been as good at covering it up at first, that it got to him. When they'd been around thirteen and Peter and James had had their first girlfriends, he'd get upset about it now and then. Quietly. He'd never made a fuss, never outwardly complained. But Sirius could tell. He could always tell. Back then. Now he was never quite sure, but that was just how Remus made him. He'd second guess his gut instinct, he'd hesitate over words he'd known for years. Had to work out if Remus was being sarcastic or genuinely confiding in him. And it fucked him right off.

He hated being thrown so far off center and the bastard didn't even know he did it. He'd glance up from his book and meet Sirius's eyes and he'd stop mid sentence, forgetting the entire thread of the story he was telling. He'd look over to Sirius's parchment to confirm the date or check a spelling and Sirius would forget how to write, how quills even fucking worked. Remus Lupin turned him into an idiot.

No, crush was the wrong word entirely.

Sirius wasn't sure he knew the right one. All he knew was the feeling he got in his chest that time they'd stayed in the Common Room later than usual and Remus had fallen asleep on him. He knew how he'd be especially aware of his stupid habit of gesticulating whenever he felt Remus's eyes on him while he was speaking. He knew that no matter how many times he'd seen Remus bleed after the full moon, it never got easier and he never stopped blaming himself for not trying hard enough, not getting to him fast enough, simply not being _enough_. He wanted to keep him safe. He wanted to keep him happy.

Remus had no idea how brightly he burned, how dull Sirius felt by comparison but how he couldn't begrudge Remus it in the same way he couldn't begrudge the sun for keeping him alive. He supposed, then, if Remus were the sun, Sirius would be the earth. Or Pluto. Sirius would be Pluto, further away than he'd like to be. Too far. But revolving completely around him.

He'd been called melodramatic more times than he could count, but with this, he _felt_ melodramatic. He hoped he wasn't in love, it seemed almost disappointing. Too commonplace. No, there was no way he could be in love with Remus Lupin because if this _were _love, if this was what writers wrote about and singers sang about and everyone and their mothers felt then surely some sort of medication should have been invented by now to stop it being so fucking _unbearable_. It _hurt_. No. No, he couldn't be in love. Maybe it was allergies. The early stages of a very serious but very slowly developing case of dragon pox. Which Remus somehow made worse.

After a while, he'd tried to stop watching, but that didn't help at all. It was the smaller things, the sound of his quill scratching parchment and his sharp, shuddering breaths as they stood outside in the snow smoking behind the greenhouses. It was becoming impossible for him not to notice the tiny, stupid things Remus did.

And to be honest, as much as it did hurt and as much as it was driving him crazy, he didn't want to stop. There was something a little bit wonderful about it, something sort of _beautiful_ about the way Remus so unknowingly affected him. It made him want to be better, made him want to _deserve_ Remus.

Not that he ever would. Not that anyone ever would, in his opinion.

And after a while, in their sixth year, Sirius had given in and started watching him again.

He couldn't help noticing that this time, Remus was watching him back.


End file.
